IDEAS AND PRACTICES FOR A “MISSION POSSIBLE”

Background

The central concern of this capacity building seminar was to understand how tourism policies can contribute to aggregate performance in primarily rural and marginal localities, where tourism opportunities are not fully exploited. The discussion was not only in terms of economic growth, but of a broader development agenda as well, integrating equity and environmental objectives.

Tourism is generally considered to be a prime engine for achieving local development in all local contexts where there are valuable assets (cultural heritage, nature, historical cities, etc.), but sometimes tourism is incorrectly considered to be a “panacea” for local development. On the contrary, tourism is a sophisticated and, more importantly, highly integrated development tool. A policy approach that takes into account some specific assets, that are by definition located in a particular place and seeks to co-ordinate the various policies affecting that place, is more likely to achieve coherent, multi-sector policy outcomes than one relying on tourism-wide policies that are “spatially blind”. Attention must be paid not only to the economic horizontal and vertical linkages, but also to the way in which local communities, and their social and economic development, can be an integral part of enhancing the tourism experience.

OECD studies on regional and local development show that the growth performance of a locality is shaped by such factors as amenities, accessibility, size, demographics, industry specialisation and agglomeration effects. Significantly, the principal growth drivers are endogenous, like location or natural or cultural resource endowments. Rather, they can be affected by public policies. These factors complement each other in different ways and this is where location and geography matters. The performance of a region will thus depend to a great extent on how well it manages to exploit and mobilise its own assets and resources. The same approach should be considered by tourism development policies.

In addition, the complexity of the challenge of the development of tourism in a given locality, particularly concerning minor touristic territories, is very high.

Seminar

The capacity building seminar focused on three main issues:

Developing an integrated strategic vision for tourism.

Using of modern communication for promoting and giving value to localities by exploiting the web 2.0 opportunities.

Destination marketing as a means to promote and sell the tourism products on the market taking into account the new players.

Policy makers and practitioners from the Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern regions.

Format:

Multi-stakeholder dialogue: the capacity building seminar was based on an active exchange of experiences between the participants duly provided in advance. The strength of such a roundtable event lies in the discussion of these experiences in an interactive setting.

Working language:

English.

Participation costs:

The following costs of participation were covered by the organisers: tuition and training materials, accommodation, lunches, and transfers during study visits.

The organisers didn't cover travel costs between the participants’ home country and Trento, Italy, or medical care and insurance during the stay in Italy.